Toyota dragging the chain?

The revival of the automotive parts supply chain in Northern Japan following the tsunami that hit in March has been nothing short of a miracle.

But it has been a man-made miracle, involving thousands of workers deployed by their companies to the areas hardest hit by the natural disaster.

While the focus has been on resurrecting companies practically wiped out during that tragedy, no one is saying much about any longer-term plans for the future.

During the preview of the new Toyota Camry last week, motoring.com.au spoke with David Buttner, Toyota's senior executive director sales and marketing, concerning the disaster's impact during the lead-in for the important new mid-size sedan.

"What I can say now is that [the tsunami] happened on Friday March the 11th," Buttner responded, by way of explaining how the company's calendar-year sales forecast was affected.

"One month later, we were looking at potentially a 90,000-unit reduction in our target for this year. Now, we might be about 20,000 to 25,000 away..."

According to Buttner, the new Camry remains on track for a local launch near the end of this year, although the tsunami was a spanner in the works for a while there.

"To be quite truthful, there's been no impact [on new Camry] at all," he said. "We fought really hard to maintain our production date... the reason being: we'll now launch this car at the end of November. If we had delayed production, you're not going to launch the car in the middle of December, you're not going to launch it in the middle of January — so we [would have] had to really push the whole production out, which then impacted model volumes of current vehicles already locked in.

"So the manufacturing people have done a sensational job, as has Japan, from a componentry point of view, to keep this on track."

For the present, however, the work done remains in the category of a band-aid fix. Toyota's local engine plant that will produce the 2.5-litre engine (pictured) for the Camry won't be operational until near the end of next year — something like 12 months after the car itself goes into production at Altona. For the engine alone, Toyota Australia will remain dependent on overseas engine production for that 12-month hiatus. And a company can't build cars without an engine supply...

The engine situation for the Camry is a short-term problem only, but globally Toyota is compelled to find a way out of a parts supply situation that could be best described as single-point-sensitive; something highlighted by the aftermath of the tsunami. Buttner is unaware of any initiatives on that front, but hints that, if anything, the company may expand its current procurement policy of purchasing parts in the same country as the vehicle production plant. 

"I haven't heard anything out of Japan yet that indicates there's going to be change. That doesn't mean there may not be. Toyota is a pretty important part of the Japanese economy. Toyota still strives to source componentry in the countries where the vehicles are manufactured. There's been no change in that policy..."

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